The Japanese giant’s brand-new console launched yesterday, but some buyers already received non-working Switch 2 units – and this time, the stores are to blame, not Nintendo!
Some gamers had a truly “unique” experience with their fresh Switch 2: the console was broken before even opening the box. Several customers went to a GameStop store in New York at midnight to pick up their Switch 2, but once home, they discovered holes in the screen. Why? The store employees had stapled the receipt to the front of the box, and the staple pierced right through to the display inside.
This happened to multiple customers at the same Staten Island GameStop, where it seems every buyer left with their receipt stapled straight onto their new console’s box. Those affected will probably have to wait for the next shipment to get a replacement—which is only fair, since the hardware was damaged by store staff, not by the buyers themselves.
Online reactions targeted not just GameStop, but also Nintendo’s packaging: many on social media argued that the Switch 2 shouldn’t be boxed with the display facing up. There’s curiosity as to whether Nintendo will repackage the console in response to these mishaps, or if we’ll see more stories of careless retail staff damaging devices. There were midnight launches all over the world—even in Canada, where the EB Games name resurfaced independently of GameStop—but so far, this seems to be an isolated incident.
For now, this Staten Island store sets the gold standard for what NOT to do. On the bright side, the Switch 2’s backward compatibility seems to work great, as we covered in today’s earlier news.
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